A science leader says closing Palmerston North’s FoodHQ innovation hub will cost the economy unless other ways are found to do that work.

New Zealand Association of Scientists co-president Professor Troy Baisden says the hub put students, researchers, chief executives and mentors in one space.

“The real value to farmers is that this should be the value that’s coming out of the farm gate in decades to come, and what we have now is what past science did in New Zealand in the decades past,” he says.

Baisden says FoodHQ’s staff depended on grants, and majority shareholder BSI made a commercial decision to close it when not enough came in.

“We need a funding system that works, but we most of all need to stabilize the workforce.”

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